Lots of Bay Area nature news to fill your Monday!
- America’s top bike race will scale Mount Diablo in May, but it’s creating a headache for organizers. [Contra Costa Times]
- Feds order cut in water diversions from Delta after too many smelt kills. [Sacramento Bee]
- Valero Refinery in Benicia one of state’s largest releasers of toxic chemicals, and overall toxins are on rise in California. [Sacramento Bee]
- Plastic bags, styrofoam in San Jose waterways drops 60 percent since citywide ban on those waste products. [San Jose Mercury News]
- Cosco Busan pilot sues Coast Guard to get his mariner’s license back. [San Jose Mercury News]
- Solar panel industry producing millions of pounds of toxic sludge and contaminated water. [Associated Press]
- Fremont approves housing development on one of last remaining hillside spaces. [Contra Costa Times]
- City of Sonoma to purchase 98-acre hillside parcel for open space and considering ban on dogs. [Santa Rosa Press Democrat]
- Nutrient-rich underwater Cordell Bank “grows like a Sunset magazine garden.” [Santa Rosa Press Democrat]